I suspect that the one body of music which expresses the United States - which expresses this continent - is jazz and blues. - Ralph Ellison; ""Jazz Country is an appropriate and even inspired entry into the world of Ellison's writing. It explores the interplay between Ellison's passionate Love or 'appropriation' of jazz and blues and his ideas about many ... Read moreother important issues, including his own ideal standards in the writing of American fiction and his analysis of the broad implications of American culture itself."" - Arnold Rampersad, Stanford University; ""Ralph Ellison based his ideal of the Renaissance man, American style, on the jazz musicians he had known. In Jazz Country, Horace Porter excavates Ellison's writings on jazz for a view of the artist we have never before seen in such sharp focus."" - Diane Middlebrook, author of Suits Me: The Double Life of Billy Tipton Show Less